


Me with You

by kemartin2009



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-15
Updated: 2018-10-15
Packaged: 2019-08-02 09:56:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16302983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kemartin2009/pseuds/kemartin2009
Summary: Hermione and Remus are both broken after the war. They live together and slowly heal. This is pretty much straight fluff.





	Me with You

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you all enjoy the fluff. There's nothing terribly NSFW in at this point. If folks are interested, I can write a second chapter.

He found her sitting on the hillside. Her hair had once been controlled in a messy bun, but now it blew wild, dancing in the wind gusting in from the sea. Gazing out at the slate grey waves that crashed on the rocky shore below, she was surrounded by purple heather and tall grasses. Her light jumper was the only consideration she gave to the early autumn winds. 

He thought for a long moment about saying something, but the tear streaks he noticed on her face when he drew closer stopped the words in his throat. And what was there to say, really? They had suffered a Pyrrhic victory. They won the war in theory, but they had lost friends, family. Her parents. His wife. He felt like an empty shell, hollowed out by grief, unable to celebrate the mere fact of their continued existence. Why bother when this didn’t really feel like much of a life?

He sat next to her instead, silent in this moment. He let the wind buffet him, smelling the salted sea, the grass, and the light lavender scent of Hermione’s shampoo. That smell was faint, nearly overwhelmed by the natural world around them, but he was looking for it, clinging to this one foolish consistency. She had used the same shampoo when she was a girl of fourteen, and it was comforting to know that sometimes, one small thing had not changed. 

He could smell the salt tang of her tears as another wave of grief washed over her on an indrawn breath. That breath was the only sound she made, the only quarter she would allow her sobs. Her shoulders shook, ruffling the grass, but she was otherwise silent. 

Remus reached out and took her hand, holding it hard in his own. 

The sounds came, quiet gasps and sniffles, as though having compassion and companionship allowed the sobs to finally break through her iron control, and he was sorry for it, knowing it hurt more in the moment, even as it would ease her pain in the long run. 

At long last, she stood, and he stood with her. She turned, and walked toward the house, and he fell into step. He had a cottage here, his grandmother’s it had been, but she had died more than a decade before, leaving her home and what wealth she had to her only living descendant. Unable to face the home he’d shared with Tonks, Remus had retreated here after the war. He hadn’t questioned it when Hermione had shown up and begged a room last week. She was a friend, and clearly in need. Perhaps this was a chance at last for him to do some good for someone else. 

~*~

It was late. Hermione wasn’t quite sure how late, save that the moon was high in the sky, casting it’s glow through the window. It wasn’t full yet, but there were only a few days left before she and Remus would have to face their first full moon together. She listened, trying to hear what had woken her. It had taken her ages to fall asleep, and she did not appreciate the interruption to her heard earned rest.

She heard it again, a shout and cry, muffled by her door and his. Hermione didn’t stop to think or consider. She scrambled out of bed and padded down the hall. His door was closed but not warded or locked, and clearly he hadn’t cast a silencing charm. She wondered if he’d simply forgotten tonight, or if his nightmare was an aberration. 

He shouted again, and inarticulate cry, and Hermione entered the room. He was thrashing in his bed, his sheets all a tangle, and his shirt riding up over his abdomen. Hermione didn’t hesitate. She crossed the room, and crawled into his bed, cuddling up next to the werewolf, careful of a flying elbow that nearly came in contact with her nose. She wrapped her arms tight around him and whispered soft words until his breathing slowed and calmed. 

She fell asleep a few moments later, her arms still tightly wound around the wolf.

Hermione blinked her eyes open to see an empty bed in an empty room that was not her own. It took only a second for the memory of last night to come back to her, and Hermione blushed and prayed that Remus wasn’t angry with her. 

She smelled coffee, its alluring scent wafting through the small cottage. Hermione extracted herself from the tangled bedsheets, stopped for her morning ablutions in their small shared bathroom, and pulled on clothing—jeans and a hooded jumper— in her own room before heading down the narrow wooden steps to the kitchen.  
Remus was at the stove, likewise clean and dressed, and cooking eggs and bacon. 

Hermione poured herself coffee, adding a bit of cream, no sugar, and went to lean on the counter next to him. 

“Do I smell biscuits?”

He glanced at her. “They should be ready to come out of the oven in another minute. Would you do the honors?”

Hermione nodded. Remus wasn’t normally a morning person, and neither of them were particularly blessed in the culinary arts. Hermione didn’t comment on the unusual display, unsure that anything she might say could be beneficial. 

“Do you want me to make gravy, or would that be to much?” Hermione asked instead. 

“Flour is in the panty,” Remus replied. Hermione started the gravy, and then took the biscuits from the oven, before joining Remus again at the stove. They stood in a companionable silence that was almost comfortable, save that both were too aware of the words unsaid. 

~*~

The night of the full moon, Remus ran free along the cliffs—the nearest neighbors were more than twenty miles away, more than enough to give the wolf free reign, and Hermione was left home with strict instructions to lock the doors. She left out a key on top of the doorjamb where Remus could easily reach and use it, but the wolf lacked the intellect and dexterity. She didn’t sleep that night. 

~*~

The sounds of Remus’ nightmares woke her again the next night. His room was again unlocked and unwarded. Hermione slid into bed next to him. She had to bring up an arm to block a thrashing fist, but she was fast enough and no harm was done. She moved close, resting her head on his shoulder and wrapping her arms around him. He calmed more quickly this time, and wrapped one arm reflexively around her waist. She looked up then to see if he was awake, but his eyes were still closed and his breathing now deep and even. Hermione fell asleep. 

~*~

Remus woke to find Hermione wrapped around him again. It was the sixth time. He’d woken briefly this time, startled out of a nightmare by the feel of a warm familiar body pressing against him. Some part of him knew he should argue, send her back to bed, but it was such a blessing to sleep without the night terrors as his too-frequent companion. He considered briefly whether to do anything, to say anything, but he didn’t. Selfish coward that he was, he liked his peaceful nights, and he was terrified that if he asked her to stop, she might actually honor his request. 

He’d been lonely for so long before Dora, and after… Hermione wasn’t Dora. He didn’t want her to be, but it felt so damn good to have someone here, someone who cared about him. She didn’t push, she wasn’t as vibrant or lively as his sweet girl had been, but she was soothing, a balm on his wounded soul. 

He looked at Hermione in the bed. She wore an oversized t-shirt and long sleep pants, nothing particularly sexy. She slept on her side, curled up nearly in fetal position around his pillow in his absence. She was young, too young for all that she’d lived through, and so beautiful. 

He felt a stab of guilt then. Dora had been dead only six months. He had barely survived, saved only by the werewolf’s ability to heal, and he’d honestly wished for most of that first month that he had died along side her. Yet already there was another woman in his life and in his bed, even if only platonically. It didn’t feel right, to have Hermione here, and yet he knew he didn’t plan to do anything that might drive her away. 

He quietly made his way to the bathroom to clean up before heading into the kitchen. He was starving, as he always was for the few days just after the full moon. He made eggs, toasted bread, and made a rasher of bacon. He brewed a pot of coffee, and for his own sanity, he made a large batch of hot chocolate on the stove top, using a warming spell after he’d poured his own cup to keep the temperature and texture right for when Hermione finally roused herself. 

~*~

Hermione found a piano in the attic. In the months she’d lived with Remus, she hadn’t even realized their tiny cottage had an attic until he asked her to take an old chair up there when they were redecorating the living room so that they’d both have a comfortable place to curl up with a book. It was badly out of tune and a few strings were broken, but that was nothing that a few spells couldn’t take care of. 

It was another week before she found the nerve to sit down on the small bench and let her fingers caress the yellowed ivory keys. Remus had gone out for a run, and she was alone in their cottage. She started soft, a melody she and her father had sung on long car trips. A musical she and her mother would sing together in the kitchen. An old hymn she vaguely recalled from Sunday mornings before she started at Hogwarts. She wasn’t really aware of the moment she’d moved from music she knew to music she created. She had no idea how long she played or where the music was taking her, lost as she was. 

He found her there, drawn by the melody that seemed to be reaching into his soul and squeezing his heart. He climbed quietly into the attic, unaware of the tears on his cheeks mingling with the sweat from his run. He saw her, sitting at the piano, her eyes closed, her head tilted slightly. Her hair was back in a loose braid, and somehow the delicate curve of her neck was alluring and vulnerable and too much for the old werewolf. 

As he watched, something in him shifted, rearranged, and it suddenly because hard to breathe around the lump in his throat. 

The music swelled to a crescendo and then tapered into a simple melody that finally drew to a close. Remus knew he should turn and flee before she saw him, but he couldn’t make his feet move. 

“Remus,” Hermione said, looking up at him, her eyes wide with surprise. “I’m sorry—I didn’t know you were here. I didn’t mean to bother you.”

“Don’t apologize,” He said, and he knew his voice sounded gruff. “You live here. You can play whenever you want.”

He turned then and stalked down the stairs, cursing himself the whole way. 

~*~

After the living room was ready, complete with new, large armchairs, perfect for curling up with a good book, new carpet free of bald patches, and many new bookshelves so that Hermione could finally unpack her library, they started on the kitchen. It hadn’t been updated in fifty years or more, and Hermione promised Remus that if they could update it with working appliances and countertops that hadn’t lived through the second world war, she would learn to cook so they could stop living off canned beans and carry out that required apparating to Cardiff. Hermione had excelled in potions at Hogwarts, and was gratified to find that cooking wasn’t entirely dissimilar. Remus even joined her in the kitchen, cutting vegetables, trimming meat—they had meat with every meal, even if Hermione didn’t always partake, and generally being useful. 

It was during one of their evening meal preparations in late spring that Hermione dropped her wooden spoon into the soup she’d been stirring. She’d been humming a song she was working on, and Remus looked up from the strawberries he was trimming for their salad when the music stopped to find Hermione staring into the middle distance, her eyes wide. 

“What’s wrong?” He asked, quickly wiping his hands on a dish towel. He crossed to her and touched her shoulder gently.

She turned, looking up and him and blinking owlishly. “Do you know, Remus, I think I’m happy.” She wrapped her arms around him and hugged him for a long moment before he overcame his shock and hugged her back, resting his cheek in her hair. 

~*~

Hermione’s bedroom was next. The room had been his grandmother’s guest room and was full of frills and doilies, and not at all to Hermione’s taste. They carefully stored all the hand-crocheted doilies in the attic, along with the quilted bedspread. They shopped together for a new chest of drawers and wardrobe, and painted the room a warm off-white, so much better than the walls’ previous hue, which Hermione referred to as “Pepto-Bismol Pink.” Her bedspread and pillow cases were the traditional Gryffindor red. Her sheets were a soft pale gold. They hung pictures of Harry, Ron, and her friends from Hogwarts on the wall, and Hermione put a picture of her parents in a place of honor on her dresser. When the whole room was done, Hermione felt something inside her give way, as though a knotted muscle had released and she could breathe and move a little easier. It took her a few days to realize that she finally felt at home. 

~*~

Toward the end of summer, they started on Remus’ room. He had resisted as long as he possibly could without being too obvious about his hesitation. For all that there was technically least to do, it was the hardest for Remus. So long as the room didn’t feel like his own, he didn’t have to acknowledge that everything was real. It was as though he was a guest in someone else’s horrible reality, and perhaps, if he was very very lucky, he might wake up and find Dora beside him. Or he would wake up back when his grandmother was alive and this room truly her’s, when he was twenty, and although the war was at its height, it still felt a little unreal because his friends were whole and safe, and the new parents of a precious baby boy. 

Hermione, of course, seemed to sense his hesitation. They stood in the doorway, surveying the newly whitewashed walls. She slid her hand into his, startling him. She spent more nights in his arms than not, yet they rarely touched during the day. Her hand felt good in his. Real, solid, and precious.  
He squeezed her hand and said, “Let’s get cleaned up.”

~*~

The leaves were changing. Remus had gone out for a long run and returned to find the house empty. He wasn’t worried. Certainly not. Hermione was a grown, strong, capable woman of twenty, and the war was long over. The Aurors had been diligent in their task of rounding up rogue Death Eaters. He had absolutely no reason to be worried. He paced back in forth in the kitchen for more than twenty minutes before convincing himself to shower, and promptly resumed his pacing once he was cleaned and dressed. 

He made tea, which cooled untouched in his cup, and at last he started making supper. He was pulling a casserole out of the oven when he heard the fireplace flare, and Hermione stepped from the floo. He sprinted to the living room and found Hermione brushing soot from her hair and skirt. 

“Where have you been?” Remus demanded. 

She raised an eyebrow. “Sorry, Mum. I didn’t realize I had a curfew.”

He looked at the ceiling, entreating Merlin for patience and giving his wolf time to calm down so that he didn’t literally snarl and growl at the girl whom ten minutes ago he’d been nearly frantic with worry for, and whom he now wanted badly to strangle. He made a slow count to ten before he responded, “You haven’t gone out alone for more than twenty minutes at a stretch in over a year. You have been gone for hours, and you didn’t even tell me you were leaving. I nearly called Harry.” His voice still carried more than a hint of his wolf’s growled displeasure. 

Hermione went a little pale at the last comment. Harry was a worry wart on his best day, but now he was a worry wart with the whole Department of Magical Law Enforcement behind him. If Remus had called Harry, she’d have had half the Aurors in Great Britain looking for her. 

“I’m sorry, Moony,” Hermione said. She stepped forward into Remus’ personal space. She wrapped her arms around him and rested her head on his chest. Remus wasn’t sure how it was possible for him to feel immeasurably calmer while his heart suddenly started racing at her touch and proximity. 

At last, she stepped back and said, “Come on. Let’s get tea and I’ll tell you about my day.”

~*~

His tea glass shattered on the floor. “You did what?” 

Hermione cast a quick charm, repairing the cup and returning it to the counter. Another swish of her wand, and the puddle of tea disappeared from the floor. 

“I asked Professor Flitwick to accept me as his apprentice,” Hermione repeated. “I don’t want to be an Auror, and we’ve finished the house, unless you really want to do the roof by hand… and I couldn’t just keep sitting around and wallowing, so I asked him to accept me. And he did. I start next week.”

Hermione didn’t look up, and Remus was grateful. He was gaping like a fish, and he knew his eyes had gone wolf yellow.

“I thought you were happy here,” The words ripped though him, and as soon as they were out he wanted to take them back. They were too painful, too revealing. He needed her! Couldn’t she see that?

She looked up then and whatever she saw didn’t shock her as much as he was fairly certain it should have. She set down her own cup of tea on the table and moved toward him. He stepped back, uncertain he could stand being touched. He was forced to stop by the counter, and still she approached. He gulped audibly, but that didn’t stop her. 

She hugged him as she did every night while they slept, resting her head on his chest and listening to his now accelerated heart rate. “I am happy here,” she said softly.

Reflexively, his arms circled her small body. His body felt like it was on fire everywhere she pressed against him.

“I need something to keep myself busy. I need to know there’s a future, to have a plan.”

Remus dropped his hands and said simply, his voice flat, “Ok.”

Her arms were still tightly wrapped, Hermione continued, “But this is my home as long as you’ll have me. I received special dispensation on the housing requirements. They’ve connected us to the Hogwarts Floo Network.”

Remus closed his eyes and said a prayer of gratitude to Merlin. He held her tightly and kissed the top of her head. 

“May I stay?” Hermione asked.

Remus laughed at the absurdity of the question. He wasn’t sure he could sleep without her. She still started each night in her own bed, but somehow woke every morning in his. In the year she’d lived in the cottage, she’d gotten well and truly under his skin, and he honestly wasn’t sure she had any idea.

“Remus?” Hermione pulled away and looked up at him. She started to open her mouth to say something else, but his mouth was on hers, his kiss stealing her breath as he clung to her. 

His kiss was desperate, fervent, fevered. He needed her and she matched him, lips and tongue and teeth. She buried her fingers in his shaggy hair, holding him close and driving him mad. 

At last, when both were desperate for breath, he pulled away far enough to rest his forehead against hers. “Stay. Please stay. Here. Forever?”

She nodded and laughed wetly, “Forever.”

Remus scooped her up and carried her to his bedroom.


End file.
